Last year the New York City market faced a crisis when the New York City Fire Department began a series of surprise inspections and shut down many of our local escape rooms.
In New York City, however, the inspections were handled rather chaotically. Because of this some companies are still closed, some will never open again, and many were shut down for the better part of a year. All the while, the FDNY would not share what standards they were holding these companies to. We asked multiple times, through multiple channels.
It feels like things have stabilized, so we felt comfortable putting together a total overhaul of our local guide.
That said, all is not resolved. There are some stellar New York City companies that have not yet reopened. They are struggling through bureaucratic hell. We hope they will open their doors again soon, and join this recommendations guide.
With the start of Season 40 on the horizon (ok, now 1 episode in), we recorded another conversation in the same vain.
We talked the messiness that was Season 39… and we dug into what’s happening in the “all winners” Season 40… and we talked escape rooms/ Survivors playing escape rooms.
Thank you Dani and Bill for letting us kick off the newest season of at Escape This Podcast: Chronomaly.
What is Escape This Podcast?
This is an audio escape room. Dani creates each scenario, complete with a set, characters, and puzzles. Bill plays a character in the world of this season. David and I arrived – over the magic of the internet and audio recording (which was way too echoey) – to solve the puzzles and escape the room!
If any of these statements apply to you, then yes, buy your ticket now!
You’re a New Yorker who loves escape rooms, but doesn’t have a car. You can hop on our bus to visit The Hayden Farm (at 13th Hour Escape Rooms) in Wharton, NJ.
You’re a fan of immersive entertainment and you’d like to see an unusual take on actors in escape rooms. 13th Hour Escape Rooms only uses actors on weekends in October… and for this event!*
You’d like to play something a little bit creepy and your typical escape room group is terrified of the concept. I assure them, it’s creepy and not scary, but if they still aren’t interested, you can come with us!
You’d love to join an escape room tour, but a weekend is too much of a commitment. If a single day sounds more reasonable, this is the perfect tour for you.
Our own playing slowed a bit this year as we worked to grow the community from other angles: reviewing more at-home escape games, running two different Escape Immerse Explore tours, and launching the Reality Escape Convention (RECON) which will take place in Boston in 2020.
When we traveled, we actively sought out the most interesting and unusual games. We raised the bar for the games we chose to play.
We tapped into the community and sought escape rooms that refined the traditional notion of escape rooms or pushed the industry in a new direction.
As “wry cheerleaders, critics, and ambassadors of the escape room world” (Rachel Sugar, Vox, 2019) we want to share the stories of people, companies, and games that are driving this frontier of the experience economy.
Changes
For our fifth annual Golden Lock Award, we’ve made a few changes to the award:
New Name
We decided to drop the wordplay of “Golden Lock-In” after the fire in Poland. Locking players inside of an escape room hasn’t been acceptable for a long time. While our 2019 Escape Room Safety Report demonstrates that locked doors are a thing of the past, we didn’t want this award to encourage it in any way.
Rules
We’ve changed, and so has the industry. We added a rule about safety and dropped a rule that both of us had to play each contending game:
We established no arbitrary minimum or maximum number of rooms that could win the award.
A company could only win once for the year.
We had published a safety rubric at the start of 2019. To be considered, a room had to achieve a safety rating of A or A+ for both emergency exits and physical restraints.
We (either of us) had to play the room during 2019.
There is no such thing as the perfect escape room, but these are the ones that we wish we could play again. Here are our 16 favorite escape rooms of 2019.
From its imposing opening scene, through each moment of exploration, there was something intriguing – and a bit unsettling – about The Legend of the Skull Witch. Enchambered built creative mechanisms that made the world that much more magical… and the solving that much more heroic.
The magic of Castle Adventure came from the gameplay and puzzles, set in bright and friendly containers. With a specific audience in mind, Escape Room Family invested in the right details, upping the energy level and the fun factor. It might not have looked like much, but it had it where it counted.
In our first adventure through Norse mythology, Codex crafted a lovingly homemade aesthetic with exquisite polish, delivering a historic land like no other. The Night of the Wolf and the Serpent had us solving our way through a story right up until we sealed our destiny.
Escaparium bestowed magical powers upon us and set us off on a quest to battle a mythical beast. Through an unusual set and tech, The Wizard Four and the Rise of Lord Thulsa fostered teamwork and moments of individual heroism.
Sauve Qui Peut – Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada
What began as a cliché aboard a submarine opened up into a spectacularly vibrant second act. Wrath of Poseidon carried a subtle message, made all the more memorable by Sauve Qui Peut’s breathtaking style and craftsmanship.
DarkPark’s newest experience was a twisted thriller about endings… in so many different ways. The End was about its story, a futuristic cautionary tale that delivered an unimaginably epic conclusion.
Escape Room Nederland – Bunschoten-Spakenburg, Netherlands
With unrivaled set design and technology, The Dome led us through a series of hallucinations, administered without any chemicals and entirely through Escape Room Nederland’s commitment to their craft. With each mind-boggling transition we were that much more amazed that this escape room even exists.
Hidden in Hamburg built their seafaring adventure into a real ship. As we traversed the decks of this actually floating escape game, we experienced puzzles that could only work in the unusual environment of Neptune’s Curse.
Crypto Escape Rooms crafted a fully realized narrative and puzzles that were as integrated into the story as they were fun to solve. With a blend of compelling storytelling and dark humor, Below Zero will thaw the heart of the most jaded escape room player.
Every prop, puzzle, and inch of the beautiful world of The Aurora Society was justified and came together to tell our story of harnessing the magical properties of the aurora borealis. Decode Ypsilanti created a cohesive world from the front door through every inch of their facility and our experience in it.
With an intense and eerie set, The Infirmary was a shining example of a classic escape room. Michigan Escape Room added novel interactions to stellar, traditional gameplay, reminding us of why we fell in love with these types of games in the first place.
ConTRAPtions Escape Rooms – Fort Collins, Colorado
The Plight of the Margo was an epic Star Trek-inspired mission in two consecutive 90-minute installments. ConTRAPtions used the extended clock to build an intense story within an impressively engineered starship.
ConTRAPtions is for sale, for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of their product. They have a special game and we want it to find a good home. If you are interested in buying ConTRAPtions, please reach out to them directly.
We played The Last Defender in Denver, but it was originally launched in Chicago and is currently running again in Chicago.
Image via The Last Defender
The Last Defender was a dark political comedy exploring cold war nuclear deterrents. For 16 players, it blurred the lines between escape room, theater, and puzzle hunt, presenting equal doses of challenging puzzles and thought-provoking moments that balanced on the razor’s edge between tragedy and comedy.
If Doctor Who’s Tardis and The Room game series had a baby, it would look like Paradox. Rabbit Hole Recreation Services created a monument to tangible gameplay delivering puzzle after puzzle with unusual and engaging interfaces.
We laughed our way through Captain Spoopy Bones And The Magnificent Quest For Some Other Pirate’s Treasure. Doldrick’s Escape Room uses their unique voice to build fully realized worlds. We were giddy accomplices in Captain Spoopy Bones’ tale. Through 75 minutes of tight gameplay and stellar reveals, they made us feel like kids again.
The Storyteller’s Secret was a serene adventure through the mind of a novelist. Boxaroo’s escape room wasn’t just built; it was thoroughly designed, delivering gameplay reminiscent of classic LucasArts games.
There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.
The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.
